INTRODUCTION Reading is an acquired-developmental ability that relies on intact language and executive function skills. Verbal fluency tasks (such as verb generation) also engage language and executive function skills. Performance of such tasks matures with normal language development, and is independent of reading proficiency. In this longitudinal fMRI study, we aim to examine the association ...

This pilot study investigated whether there is a correlation between English reading proficiency of Japanese EFL learners and their ability to read aloud properly. The former was measured through a reading comprehension test under the format of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), whereas the latter was evaluated in terms of (1) the use of correct breath/sense groups, (2) rate of ...

The ability of a user to understand a document would seem to be an critical aspect of that document’s relevance, and yet a document’s reading difficulty is a factor that has typically been ignored in information retrieval systems. In this position paper we advocate for incorporating estimates of reading proficiency of users, and reading difficulty of documents, into retrieval models, representa...

Constructing a student model for language tutors is a challenging task. This paper describes using knowledge tracing to construct a student model of reading proficiency and validates the model. We use speech recognition to assess a student’s reading proficiency at a subword level, even though the speech recognizer output is at the level of words. Specifically, we estimate the student’s knowledg...

Reading fluency is one of the underlying factors of successful language curricula and it is also one of the defining characteristics of good readers. A lack of fluency is a common characteristic of struggling readers. There is a growing body of research that demonstrates proficiency in reading fluency is important for success in learning to read English. While the role of reading fluency is inc...

Different types of reading strategies pose challenges to instructors and learners in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. This study aimed at identifying and comparing reading strategies used by instructors and students in dealing with literal comprehension, reorganization, and inferential comprehension questions. The participants werefive EFL instructors and 27 students from the En...

We consider the automatic assessment of oral proficiency for advanced second language speakers. A spoken dialogue system is used to guide students through a reading and a repeating exercise and to record their responses. Automatically-derived indicators of proficiency that have proved successful in other studies are calculated from their speech and compared with human ratings of the same data. ...

There has been a scarcity of studies exploring the influence of students' American Sign Language (ASL) proficiency on their academic achievement in ASL/English bilingual programs. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of ASL proficiency on reading comprehension skills and academic achievement of 85 deaf or hard-of-hearing signing students. Two subgroups, differing in ASL proficienc...

Computational approaches to readability assessment are generally built and evaluated using gold standard corpora labeled by publishers or teachers rather than being grounded in observations about human performance. Considering that both the reading process and the outcome can be observed, there is an empirical wealth that could be used to ground computational analysis of text readability. This ...

The development of English language learners (ELLs) was explored from kindergarten through eighth grade within a nationally representative sample of first-time kindergartners (N = 19,890). Growth curve analyses indicated that, compared to native English speakers, ELLs were rated by teachers more favorably on approaches to learning, self control, and externalizing behaviors in kindergarten and g...